基于云服务的远程英语创感学习研究与设计

在远程网络语言学习中,需要左右脑进行互动,云服务能够革新信息技术的工作方式,提升左脑效率;创感学习可以改善学习策略,激活右脑优势.基于远程英语的信息条件和教学实际分析,建构基于云服务的创感学习均衡模式,能够提高信息技术的实用性和创新思维的实效性,改变英语学科只关注于逻辑、线性、基于推理思维的记忆训练,而忽视综合性、创造性、基于境脉思维方式的语言习得,使教学路径更加清晰.     

Supporting medical decision making with argumentation tools

This study investigated the collaborative decision-making and communicative discourse of groups of learners engaged in a simulated medical emergency in two conditions. In one condition subgroups used a traditional whiteboard (TW group) to document medical arguments on how to solve a medical emergency. In the other condition subgroups used interactive whiteboards (IW group) where they could document their medical arguments by using a structured template for constructing, annotating and sharing arguments. The discourse of each group was coded with respect to decision-making and communicative activities. The research goal was to identify relationships between the decision-making and collaborative discourse under the two conditions. The IW condition differed from the TW condition in that participants engaged in more adaptive decision-making behavior early on in the intervention. This early engagement led to shared understandings and subsequently to more effective patient management. Group differences were also found in the types of collaborative discourse and the IW groups produced more productive argumentation.     

Students' Metacognitive Development in an Innovative Second Year Chemical Engineering Course

In this paper the metacognitive development of students in a second year chemical engineering course (which had such development as an explicit aim) is investigated. Journal data from the class were analysed and a framework comprising four different areas of metacognitive development was arrived at. Within each area, key shifts in approach were identified. The first area (category 1) concerns students' knowledge and awareness (conceptions) of learning, and the important development in this area was from a focus on solving problems towards a stronger valuing of conceptual understanding. The second and third areas deal with aspects of control. The second area (category 2a) is that of organising one's learning, and here students were seen to develop from an uninformed focus on discipline and time management, towards a more metacognitively informed use of resources. The third area (category 2b) is monitoring of learning, with the key shift here from naïvely accepting outside judgements, to using them strategically for purposes of self-assessment. The fourth area (category 3) involves students' sense of a purpose for learning beyond the subject. Important developments here were both in terms of a career goal, as well as personal growth. Data from interviews with five students largely confirmed the validity of these categories, as well as illustrating that different students showed development in different areas.     

概念同化、改变和迁移在教学中的应用

学习是对现有知识结构的丰富和重构。丰富是现有知识对新知识的同化过程,重构则是概念改变,表现为理论的修正和改变。上述学习理论运用于教学中的一个重要方面就是设计和组织学习材料。学习材料具有多种形式,包含着与学习者固着观念相联系的同化点,能引发学习者的认知冲突,或显示新知识的特性导致概念改变,并且能提供新的情景便于学习者的知识迁移。因此综合设计和组织学习材料是促进学习者对知识进行有意义建构,提高其学习能力的关键。     

Arguing from Nature: The role of ‘nature’ in students’ argumentations on a socio-scientific issue

This paper explores how students invoked different conceptions of ‘nature’ in eight socio-scientific group discussions about human gene therapy. The paper illustrates and discusses how the students articulated nature and to what extent they elicited science factual content in the process. While the students in this study invoked nature at key places in a variety of dialectical contexts in the discussions, these invocations were often uncritical appeals and rarely involved science factual content. Even when an argument from nature was challenged, the author of that argument would often shift the sense of nature rather than elaborate upon the argumentation. It is argued that if students were properly introduced to the evaluative character of the term ‘nature’ it would not just be conducive to the quality of their argumentation, but also invite them to foreground science factual content at key places in their discussion.     

Evaluation of an Innovative Mathematics Program in Terms of Classroom Environment,Student Attitudes,and Conceptual Development

Dull classroom environments, poor students’ attitudes and inhibited conceptual development led to the creation of an innovative mathematics program, the Class Banking System (CBS), which enables teachers to use constructivist ideas and approaches. To assess the effectiveness of the CBS, the Individualised Classroom Environment Questionnaire (ICEQ), Constructivist Learning Environment Survey (CLES), Test of Mathematics-Related Attitudes (TOMRA), and concept map tests were administered to two groups of fifth-grade students as pretests and posttests over an academic year. To enrich the data collected from those questionnaires, three case studies (one for the experimental group and two for the control group) were undertaken based on observations and interviews of selected students. Relative to non-CBS students, CBS students experienced more favorable changes in terms of mathematics concept development, attitudes to mathematics, and perceived classroom environments on several dimensions of the CLES (e.g., Personal Relevance, Shared Control) and the ICEQ (e.g., Participation and Differentiation). Qualitative information based on classroom observations and student interviews reinforced and enriched the patterns of results obtained from the concept test and questionnaires.     

The impact of problem-based learning on engineering students’ beliefs about physics and conceptual understanding of energy and momentum

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the impact of problem-based learning (PBL) on freshmen engineering students’ beliefs about physics and physics learning (referred to as epistemological beliefs) and conceptual understanding of physics. The multiple-choice test of energy and momentum concepts and the Colorado learning attitudes about science survey were used to collect the data. The sample consisted of 142 students enrolled in the PBL and traditional lecture classes in the engineering faculty of a state university in Turkey. The analyses showed that the PBL group obtained significantly higher conceptual learning gains than the traditional group and the change (improvement) in the PBL group students’ beliefs from the pre- to post test were significantly larger than that of the traditional group. The results revealed that beliefs were correlated with conceptual understanding. Suggestions are presented regarding the implementation of the PBL approach.     

Enhanced learning through design problems – teaching a components-based course through design

This paper describes a teaching method used in an electrical machines course, where the students learn about electrical machines by designing them. The aim of the course is not to teach design, albeit this is a side product, but rather to teach the fundamentals and the function of electrical machines through design. The teaching method is evaluated by a student questionnaire, designed to measure the quality and effectiveness of the teaching method. The results of the questionnaire conclusively show that this method labelled ‘learning through design’ is a very effective way of teaching a components-based course. This teaching method can easily be generalised and used in other courses.